Usage Tip

Create an additive ZynAddSubFX patch. Create a 'hard' sawtooth voice with 'Par.' cranked all the way up to 63. Turn the second harmonic up almost all the way.

Now, on a second voice, do the same for an ordinary Sine Wave.
Download Patch

Now when you play the sound with Shelljam, you can get quite amazing overtones by holding a (preferably low) key and playing with your mouse or touchpad.

Welcome to Shelljam!

Check out the new mouse overtone-juggling functionality with ZynAddSubFX!

Mission Statement

When you buy a computer, it ships with a non-touch-sensitive musical keyboard and a two-axis MIDI controller. Colloquially, they are also known as 'Keyboard and Mouse'.
Shelljam helps you return these devices to their inherent purpose and lets you make music with them.
This is done by turning your hardware input into MIDI signals so fast you don't notice any latency. Shelljam's MIDI Port may be connected to any synthesizer, sampler or other sound generator. A little filtering is also added to let you make high-end music with cheap keyboards. (glitch correction)
Before you buy MIDI, try Shelljam!

What's new

You can now use really cheap keyboards thanks to the new glitch tweak:)
A great mouse controller combo added for use with ZynAddSubFx
Example added using the new mouse features.
The web site font is now big enough to be readable :)

Features

Play live or record with nothing more than a computer
Safe: No window switching or other accidents during playing
Flexible: Control anything that has a MIDI input with Shelljam.
Economical: Depending on the type of music you make you might be able to do without specific MIDI hardware. I do!
Stable: Extremely simple code using well-tested libraries.
Keep it simple: Less cables, no driver issues, less to carry
Speedy: Written for speed in C++, which, contrary to popular belief, is anything as fast as pure C.

Screenshots

Shelljam on the command-line.
Shelljam with its looks-like-a-crash-but-is-safe X11 input window, and amSynth and QJackCtl in the background.

Examples

New! Nature's breeze. A bass tone carried to layers and layers of overtones with the new mouse controller. I love this one :) Uses ZynAddSubFX with a simple additive patch as a bass note. The Shelljam mouse controllers alter both filter parameters, one of the things digital synthesizers are actually better at then their analogue ancestors :). Was also recorded in pure MIDI form with Seq24.
Get'cha Groove On. A funky bass line played with Shelljam and rendered with ZynAddSubFX using this patch.
Jazzchords, played with Shelljam and rendered with ZynAddSubFX using this patch.
Bounce. Drum loop, played with Shelljam and rendered with ZynAddSubFX using this patch.

Get Shelljam

Source and i386 linux binary downloads of Shelljam is available. Shelljam is currently in alpha stage.

Requirements

A linux low-latency workstation with QJackCtl and a good sound generator such as ZynAddSubFx or the Om synth is recommended. Shelljam works very well to record with Seq24, especially when assigned to a key-combination in your favorite window manager. Mine is XFCE.
ALSA, 1.0 or later, with the alsa-seq module loaded, if using linux. (Other operating systems not tested as of now)
libgii, 0.9.1 or later.
RtMidi, 1.0.2 or later. (only for source version)
To build from source: The scons build system, 0.9.6 or later.

Installation

Linux i386, from binary

Install libgii. (RtMidi is statically linked in the executable itself)
Download and untar the latest binary archive (has '-bin' after the version number.)
Copy the file 'shelljam' to a useful place such as /usr/lib/bin and run it.

Linux, any architecture, from source (tested on i386, success reported on ppc)

Install libgii, portmidi and scons.
Do the following with your archive:

tar -xvjf shelljam-0.0.3.tar.bz2 scons strip shelljam
Copy the resulting binary shelljam to a useful place such as /usr/local/bin and run it.

Manual

Get a working low-latency linux audio workstation.
Start up your instrument, load patches if necessary, and connect it to the MIDI-Through port of your sequencer.
Start up shelljam. The looks-like-a-crash-but-is-safe window appears.
Start playing with the Shelljam Keyboard.
Move the mouse or touchpad left and right to change the Sound Timbre controller, or up and down for sound brightness. In ZynAddSubFX, this way you can control both parameters of an Analogue filter in real time, and that sounds really sassy on a Saw Wave, for example :)
To quit, press and hold the ESC key, then press the RETURN key.

The Shelljam Keyboard layout. (as text)

Known issues

The X interface spawns a non-drawing window. It will look like a crash, but it's fine. Just ignore.
Keymaps are hard-coded. There is currently no way to change them without a recompile. However, the keymaps read scancodes and should therefore work the same on all keyboards.
Mouse support is X only.

Get involved

If you find a bug or feature lacking and can fix it yourself, please do get yourself involved and submit a patch to the latest release.

Bug reports

If you find a bug and cannot fix it yourself, please file a bug report.

Feature requests

If you are using this software and would like a little adaption done you can't do yourself feel free to submit a feature request

Hall of Fame

Florian Schmidt kindly pointed out the 0.0.4 release of Shelljam did not contain any code. Duh. Try to compile a README. Fixed, and thanks Florian!

The Author

Yours truly :)

This is me, reenacting high school and simultaneously pretending I was contented and well balanced at the time.

Hi, I'm Carlo Capocasa.

Yes, the Carlo Capocasa.

If you don't know me or couldn't care less, that doesn't matter at all, because I'm still the Carlo Capocasa. I've checked most telephone books in the world and I have yet to find someone who has bootlegged by name.

This gentleman, however, has come quite close.

Reach me telepathically, over jabber (capocasaATswissjabberDOTorg) or Email capocasaATgmxDOTnet.

If you chose to materialize near me please do so outside my apartment and knock. Thank you.